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Fertile Ground

marco.org

11–20 of 219 posts

Re: Fertile Ground

#11
post #2

"iOS 7 is different. It isn’t just a new skin: it introduces entirely new navigational and structural standards..." Beyond the parallax effect, what are these new navigation and structural changes? I'm not trolling here, I'm genuinely curious. I'm about to build a new iOS app and I did not see major navigation or structural changes that would drastically affect how I design an app's UI or UX.

There are is support for physics effects in the UI now, I'm not really sure what navigational changes he could be talking about though.

There's a lot of awesome new multitasking and background stuff you can do now. It's a mix between the UI changes and the underlying parts that I think Marco is referring to.

Re: Fertile Ground

#12

This is ridiculous. One uninnovative developer getting excited about fewer choices and lower quality in iOS application.

You're ridiculous, and I predict that Marco will be laughing his way to the bank. Let's revisit this in say December or Spring of next year, shall we?

Re: Fertile Ground

#13
post #2

"iOS 7 is different. It isn’t just a new skin: it introduces entirely new navigational and structural standards..." Beyond the parallax effect, what are these new navigation and structural changes? I'm not trolling here, I'm genuinely curious. I'm about to build a new iOS app and I did not see major navigation or structural changes that would drastically affect how I design an app's UI or UX.

There are is support for physics effects in the UI now, I'm not really sure what navigational changes he could be talking about though.

One change highlighted in the keynote presentation: instead of tapping the ‘Back’ button on the upper left corner of a UITableView layout, in iOS 7 you swipe horizontally from the left edge of the screen.

There are many more changes, you can read about them in the new iOS 7 Human Interface Guidelines: http://www.slideshare.net/evgenybelyaev16/mobile-hig-2278458...

Re: Fertile Ground

#14
Unless Apple has significantly improved new app discovery on the App Store, I don't think we are going to see any changes.

The algorithms that apple uses for the top lists promote established players, the search functions suck, and the interface for scrolling through lists of apps are so slow and clunky that it discourages users from exploring beyond the first 5-6 results in any list.

Re: Fertile Ground

#15
post #7

Another point that I think has been understated thus far: Android, WP, and iPhone's visual philosophies are closer now than ever before. I can only assume this will lead to fewer "ecosystem-exclusive" apps, which I think is a net positive for everyone.

I keep hearing about these similarities, but most seem superficial/only visual. How menu/table UI systems work aren't necessarily similar. How does that help apps get on every system?

Re: Fertile Ground

#16
post #7

Another point that I think has been understated thus far: Android, WP, and iPhone's visual philosophies are closer now than ever before. I can only assume this will lead to fewer "ecosystem-exclusive" apps, which I think is a net positive for everyone.

You give way too much importance to the visual part, the reason for some apps to be ecosystem exclusive are technical or legal limitations. Writing this on a rooted Android phone with third party keyboard, through a vpn...

Re: Fertile Ground

#17

It seems hypocritical to laud fragmentation when it happens in iOS and decry it in Android. These changes seem similar to the Android differences in gingerbread and post-honeycomb. The resulting effect on developers will be the same. iOS 7 has made it apparent which bloggers are unable or unwilling to be fair in their criticism when it comes to Apple. The mismatched gradients on the new icons are beautiful to them, t…

This is a very a good point. As a major Apple fan I completely agree with you. After looking over the iOS changes I see absolutely nothing that is more "revolutionary" than what we have now in iOS6, or even what Android and Windows Phone offers.

At best, it looks like iOS7 is nothing more than a mix of Android and Windows Phone plus a few extra UI elements.

I am not a big fan of Marco's obsession with drama but I do respect his opinion and find his take on certain thing within the tech industry enlightening. Unfortunately, this post does seem like nothing more than turning a blind eye to what Apple has done with iOS7.

Re: Fertile Ground

#18
I don't think this is going to play out this way.

Look to other operating systems that evolved their UI in similar fashion and a few of their dominant software players over the years:

Windows-Office, Quickbooks, Quicken, IE/Chrome/Firefox/Netscape (which have shifted favor over years, but not because of UI changes in the OS)

Mac OS (X and classic)-Adobe PS, Illustrator, ProTools, Office

UI changes, even major ones, have had little to no effect on the dominant software titles for those systems. There have occasionally been new categories of software introduced. For instance, high quality video editing software for the home market, which was made possible by better home cameras and major advances in speed and resources of home computers. Pervasive internet allowed the browser wars to happen. It wasn't minor UI changes in the OS that allowed new players to come onto the scene, it was major technological advances.

If you go back far enough, you can argue that the change from command line to GUI allowed for just such a revolution described (it definitely did: Wordstar/Wordperfect lost to Word, Lotus lost to Excel, AutoCad nearly lost its throne, etc.). But, nobody in their right mind is arguing that iOS 6 to iOS 7 is the difference between DOS and Windows 3.1 or between an Apple IIe and Lisa or the first Macintosh.

History isn't always the best indicator in the tech industry, but in absence of other indicators, I'll bet on history repeating in some form.

Re: Fertile Ground

#19
I hope I'm not in some crazy minority here, but I actually value stability and UIs not changing radically all the time. I feel like there's a craze afoot at the moment to "redesign everything all the time" and I'm not a big fan of it. If you're in tech, sure, it's the "price of progress" but for the lay user (i.e. the people who pay us money for software) it's just annoying.
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